Clean-up task undertaken

Over the last couple of years, our database got filled up with links to a lot of blogs that were not getting updated regularly. In order to give our readers the best of cricket blogosphere, I took it upon myself to delete such blogs.

One thing that I realized by taking up the clean-up task is that there are a very very few good cricket blogs on the www. And if they are any good, they are probably already linked to by cricketernews.com.

I deleted the following blogs that cricketernews.com was linking to:
1. Six and Out
2. The Burnt Bail
3. CricInfo select
4. Alex barnett
5. BlogCritics
6. JumpCut
7. Now Public
8. India eNews
9. Jhakas
10. Newsman
11. BritBlog
12. Monsters and Critics Cricket
13. Fox Cricket Blog
14. The Third Umpire
15. Alochana.org
16. CricketView Point
17. Beer CHips
18. Caught Behind
19. Cricket Etcetera
20. cricket view point
21. Cricket News - My cricket blog
22. Ashes 2006 Blog
23. The Cricket Astrologer Bl...

If you are the owner of these blogs and you have become an active blogger once again, do let us know. We'll be happy to link to you.

New blogs, video sharing sites?

At cricketernews.com, we are in the process of overhauling some of the blog, video sites that we link to. Over the last 6 months, we found that some of the blogs post too few entries to be considered serious, and a few other video sharing sites just don't have high-quality cricket content.

If there is a blog/video sharing site that you follow, please share with us. Here are some broad criteria -

• Blogs must post at least 2 items per week.
• Blogs must be clean, well-written and void of any profane language.
  
• We don't want sites that exist only to make money out of ads.

Thanks -
CricketerNews admin team

Editorial: We owe England big

If England indeed decide to tour India, the first Test match will be underway in a week. This would be the first big event of such kind to be hosted in India post the shock of 11/26 and 60-hour long ordeal that followed. Even if England show up with half of their star players missing, it would still be an event to cherish and celebrate.

All the symbolism apart, if England show up, it would be because they trust India. They trust the fact that under the aegis of Indian security forces, their lives are safe. It would be because, by playing the two Test matches, they would earn every bit of respect and fame every athlete craves for and deserves. It would be because they realize that the risks - however big or small - *are* worth taking.

And for that, we Indians owe them. I am not the one who believes in the symbolism this Test series will hold. At the end of the day, it is just a sport. Trivial compared to the scenes seen on TV around the world last week. Trivial compared to the enormous loss that the families have suffered. Trivial compared to the fact that the attacks tried to threaten the very manner in which we Indians live our lives.

But the fact that 15 or so cricketers who represent their country honorably, and who all are stars in their own right decide to embark on a journey to our homeland when we could use every ounce of support - that is not trivial. And for that we Indians owe them. Ever since the dust settled outside the Nariman House, the vibes sent out by the ECB have been nothing short of reassuring. And for that we owe them - even if this series does not take place.

If it does, and we get 10 days of high quality cricket, the onus will be on every cricket fan in Chennai and Mohali to return the favor.Return the favor by showing up at the venues and supporting the team that you have always supported. No banners, no hoardings needed. Just show up and show how we care. The world will be watching.

CricketerNews.com's widget

The live score widget that we published at Widgetbox.com seems to be a hit among bloggers and site administrators.

In the last year or so, the widget has been viewed 896,783 times. The widget has been installed 1114 times onto different web sites.

Champions League - Schedules, Teams

The complete coverage of the Champions League can be found HERE

Sourav Ganguly's career in Map

The fourth Test would be Sourav Ganguly's last Test match. CricketerNews.com has chronicled his career using Google Maps.

http://www.cricketernews.com/livescore_project/maps/ganguly/index.html

This mashup is similar to the one created by Virender Ajmani from MiBazaar. Thanks to him and my buddy Santhosh R for helping me put this together.

India on a roll

India secured a comfortable victory against ,winning by 7 wickets in the Asia cup …India’s spirited and clinical performance saw them over haul the Bangladesh total of 283 with more than 6 overs to go.
Bangladesh earlier won the toss and elected to bat. Tamim Iqbal and alok kapali were the main scorers for Bangladesh..A well made 55 by tamim Iqbal and the maiden century by Alok kapali gave Bangladesh a competitive score of 283 for the loss of 6 wickets. The 6th wicket partnership between Kapali and mahmadullah converted the sluggish start by Bangladesh to a good score Alok Kapali made 115 after being dropped by goni on 25…Indians displayed average fielding skills dropping sitters and misfielding on various occasions…India’s poor fielding and bowling was evident by the fact that Bangladesh scored 90 runs in their last 10 overs.The coach definitely needs to look into bowling as all bowlers went for runs without a good economy rate to talk home about
Bangladesh looked well on target when they got in to defend their score with shahadat hossain removing both Uthappa and rohit sharma…but the partnership between suresh raina and gautam gambhir halted any further plans of the Bangladesh bowlers of creating any further havoc…Gambhir was in his usual best scoring runs at ease…he was all set a for a another 100 before he got out to reza off a miscued drive…he scored 90…but the main stay of the Indian batting was Raina…after a maiden century against hong kong and a blitzkrieg 84 against Pakistan,raina continued his rich vein of form slamming a century off 93 balls. he top scored with 116 off 107 balls.. Bangladesh also had their share of shoddy fielding adding to their woes as they dropped Gambhir on 56 and raina on 16..India now have bright chances of qualifying for the finals on July 6 as they have 4 pts carrying over 2 pts from the first round…A convincing win with all batsmen getting to the play…we hope the winning streak continues

Knights ' blown ' away

The kolkata knight riders lost a crucial match to the chennai super kings at the eden gardens thus adding more road blocks to their route to the semis....the knight riders had only themselves to blame for the loss ,courtesy a dropped catch as the D/L method handed a three run victory to chennai super kings.
Earlier Makhaya Ntini came up with a hattrick to reduce Kolkata to a modest total.He first removed saurav ganguly in the last ball of the 3rd over before he was removed by stand in skipper fleming,as dhoni had retired to the dressing room nursing his injured finger...Ntini came back only in the 17 over striking a double blow removing debabrata das and hussey in the first two balls....the hat trick almost went unnoticed for a while even with the score board,courtesy the gap between the overs bowled ny ntini..he now becomes the 3rd after L balaji nad amit mishra to have taken a hat trick in T20 format.he returned with figures of 4 for 21.
for the knight riders, salman butt (73 runs)anchored the innings after the loss of early 2 wickets putting up a partnership with das before das fell victim to ntitni...the knight riders put a modest total of 149 for 5 with a asking rate of just over 7 runs to chase...
chennai super kings got off to a good start putting 55 runs on board at the end of 8 overs ,before a sudden burst of wind had everybody running for cover.a foodlight disruption also happening the match was later called off as chennai super kings were well ahead of the asking rate as per the D/L method.they had to score
53 runs without a loss,which they very well matched thus making them the winners of the game.
Ashok Dinda who dropped parthiv patel of a sitter will continue to tell a tale of a dropped catch ruining hteir chances of a possible semi final birth.....its really getting tougher right now for the semi final spot as three teams are getting too too close to predict....tadays match of the daredevils will probabaly provide an answer to the question...so lets wait and watch